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| 2. List |
The massive “Solano Project” dammed Putah Creek in order to stop
its natural eastern flow and to divert it south for dispersal across Solano
County in a system of canals and pipes. The complex array of structures needed
for this was almost complete at the end of 1958.
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| 1. '98 Update |
In that year and in the next year, UCD officials were still
at the “feasibility study” stage of thinking about getting water from that project
(UCD 1998 Solano Project Water
Conservation Plan Update excerpted in Image 1).
When the decision to attempt acquisition was made, officials
had not yet decided between bringing water to the campus in the creek itself
versus building a pipeline (Image 1).
An engineering firm was contracted to estimate the cost of
each but no decision between the two had been made by late in 1961.
I. UCD CLIMBS
ABOARD LATE.
This was because, amazingly and according to the Update, the Solano Project boundaries
did not include UCD and “negotiation” (pleading and demanding?) was therefore
necessary. (This is in accord with the currently online Solano Project
schematic of its distribution system. The district’s boundary does not extend north
enough to include the UCD pipeline and that structure is not shown.)
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| 3. 1-13-67 |
I interpret this part of the history to mean that UCD was
something of a late-arriving stepchild of the Solano Project and had to fight
its way aboard. Even so, it did get aboard. A contract for water was signed in December
1962.
But water would not start to flow onto the campus until
early 1969.
Indeed, the pipeline itself was not built, for the most
part, until 1968.
II. THE FIVE-YEAR
SLOG AGAINST RESISTING PROPERTY OWNERS.
So what was happening in the five years of 1963, ’64, ’65, ’66, and ‘67? Why was
there a five-year delay?
The short answer appears to be: property-owner resistance.
Image 2 is an excerpt from the engineering drawing
reproduced in the previous post (# 128). It appears to show as many as 62 owners
across whose properties the pipeline had to cross.
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| 4. 9-19-67 |
I must now report that I have so far only been able to
identify a skimpy and scattered array of documents describing what happened
over those five years. But I have found enough, I think, to provide a valid
basic story. Of course, this story is subject to change if fuller information
comes to light.
The first of these documents is dated January 13, 1967 and is a letter in which a UCD official is hiring
three law students to do “process server” work to owners of property across
which the pipeline needed to be built (Image 3).
Hiring three law students to serve condemnation orders
implies that over 1963-66 a significant portion of owners had not
reached voluntary settlement with UCD and it was being forced to allow the pipeline
by means of court-ordered condemnation.
The fact that three
law students were hired might imply that each expected a decent amount
of work for his trouble.
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| 5. 11-1-67 |
The second document--image 4--is dated September 19, 1967 and is from a UCD official to a Solano Project official
stating that “we are experiencing difficulties in obtaining the easement for construction
of the off-campus transmission irrigation line.” Beyond that, the writer of the
letter appears to report that UCD is in troublesome arrears in general in
meeting its contract obligations to the Solano Project.
Then in image 5, a UCD attorney letter dated November 1, 1967 tells us that there are
“some ten remaining parcels to be acquired” through legal action.
We see in images 7 and 8 that when asking people for
easements and consent was not obtained, a court issued “Order of Condemnation”
was, in fact, used.
More research would be required in order to know exactly how many property owners were subject to condemnation.
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| 6. 6-3-99 |
Image 7 shows an excerpt from the Parcel Map of the
Solano County Norman Property on which someone has marked the UCD pipeline in
red. The important aspect of this marking is, to me, that the “easement” reads
“State of California Water Line Easement.”
UC may be a constitutionally autonomous entity of the State
of California, but, at the end of the day, it is still a unit of that
government with the power to invoke the ultimate sanction, which is coercion.
So, at the most fundamental level, the pipeline is a State of California rather
than a UCD project.
IV. DISORGANIZATION?
In the Chancellor’s Office archives folder in which I found
some of the above documents, I also came onto a perplexed, October 20, 1967
letter from the illustrious Hubert Heitman to the then Dean of Agriculture
James Meyer (Image 9).
UCD apparently owned land near Wolfskill Road on which it
had experimental tomato fields that would be traversed by--and destroyed by--the
pipeline. As well, additional land would be left unusable. According to
Heitman, relevant UCD officials had not informed him of what was to happen and
had no plan for dealing with it.
Meyer responded to Heitman’s letter with a memo to campus
administrator Ed Spafford asking “Is what he says true?”
This incident of ignorance and self-inflicted damage
bespeaks lack of planning. Taken together with the faltering suggested in other
documents, do we see serious disorganization at high levels?
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| 7. Map |
V. A LESS THAN CELEBRATORY
ENTERPRISE?
When I first began researching the pipeline, I thought
there must surely have been a public groundbreaking when it started and a ceremony
of celebration when the first water began to flow into the main UCD reservoir
in early 1969. Perhaps Emil Mrak himself threw the switch that started the flow.
The structure is, after all, an important water project of
its era and of key significance to the future of UCD. But, I have yet to find
any evidence that it was publicly celebrated--or covered in the press at all.
Such ceremonies may well have been held and I have failed to identify them. If
they are there, please let me know so I can publish about them here.
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| 8. 10-20-67 |
On the other hand, perhaps because of a trail of coerced
and aggrieved property owners, UCD officials may have had little interest is
publicizing the pipeline.
VI. THE CITY OF
DAVIS ACQUIRING PUTAH WATER: ONE LAST TIME.
In the Davis surface water debates of early 2013 and later,
some people regarded as experts in water matters claimed that the Davis City
Council once had an opportunity to acquire Putah water but decided against it.*
The story I tell here about UCD acquiring Putah water
renders such claims extremely dubious. Even UCD getting Putah water was no easy
walk. It went against many obstacles in which success was not certain. And this
was hard-going for an entity that had a right to Putah water by virtue of
owning much Solano County property. Further, UCD was a State of California unit
with very considerable state-level financial, legal, water expertise, and other resources
with which it could force access to Putah water and get it transported across
Solano County against resistance.
The City of Davis had few or none of these advantages or
resources. And given what we have otherwise seen, it is exceedingly unlikely
the Solano Project magnanimously offered Putah water to the City of Davis.
* * *
Let me conclude by saying once again: If anyone has
information on the UCD Offcampus Pipeline that revises and/or expands the
account I give here, please let me know and I will publish it.
____________________
* Davis History Today
post # 95, January 13, 2013:
I am pleased to repeat from the last post my thanks to the
following UCD officials for their genial and effective help on this project: Dave
Klippert, Manager, Campus Planning and Community Resources, Civil and
Industrial Services; Lewis S. Pollock, Superintendent, Utilities Division; and,
John Skarstad, University Archivist.
